The invention relates to the chemistry of carbon compounds in the realm of molecular and microbiology. Furthermore, the invention relates to extracts or essences of undetermined constitution containing peptides of unknown chemical structure and enzyme or co-enzymes. The invention also relates to processes for preparing, activating, inhibiting, separating or purifying enzymes.
The invention relates to biochemical reactions leading to the production of a critical cell regulator which has great potential utility in pharmacology, microbiology, agriculture, and certain industrial operations such as fermentation, by-product recovery and sewage treatment. More in particular, the invention relates to a new alkaloid obtained by a complex series of enzymatic reactions from plant, animal and microbial extracts which contain specific proenzymes, specific enzymes, specific enzyme substrates and critical accessory factors. The invention also relates to processes for preparing, activating, inhibiting, separating or purifying the various enzymes involved in the formation of the alkaloid xeronine and for applying xeronine or a kit which will release xeronine in certain industrial, nutritional or pharmacological applications.
Parent U.S. Pat. No. 4,409,144, teaches that many commercial enzyme preparations which are used in pharmacology and industry and which are labeled and sold as proteases, peptidases, amylases or lysozymes actually owe their efficacy to chance contamination with the precursor system which produces xeronine. Since the amount of the xeronine precursor system varies between different batches of product made by the same manufacturer, the effectiveness of such products is unreliable. It is now proposed that either pure xeronine or a reliably standardized system or "kit" which releases xeronine be produced and used in place of these improperly described products.
The objectives of this continuation-in-part application are to amplify some additional methods of activating proxeroninase, to list some additional commercial sources of this enzyme, to give more specific details for processing several important commercial sources of xeronine, and to give further details about certain commercial applications of xeronine.